Although predictions can go wrong for many reasons, it does seem likely that future historians of twentieth-century thought will see grammar as an area which showed important advances. A great deal of evidence suggests real progress: the highly detailed descriptive grammars now available for English and several other languages, the historically oriented grammars of scholars such as Otto Jespersen, the increasing number of grammars for languages rarely described before, and the insights resulting from work on language typology and language universals. In pedagogical grammar there has also been considerable progress, as seen in work on second language acquisition and English for specific purposes. Despite such advances, however, language teaching has not yet benefited as much as it should. For some teachers, grammar is an unreliable tool, and for others it is a source of fear. A fundamental assumption of Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar is that language teaching will not make significant advances beyond those already seen until more teachers become convinced of the importance of grammar and until they find ways to employ it more effectively. This volume aims to convince more practitioners of the importance and the potential of improved grammar teaching.

Since Perspectives is informed by recent insights from linguistic theory, it will also be worthwhile for researchers interested in complex problems such as the relation between syntax, lexicon, and discourse. ‘The theoretical stances taken in the chapters are quite diverse; such pluralism is especially desirable, I feel, since controversies abound.